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    Colin Jost Falls Flat at White House Correspondents Dinner

    The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has occasionally featured some great stand-up comedy. This “S.N.L.” veteran’s set will not join that list.People in the media have long worried about the impact of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on journalism. The concern is that it makes the press look too chummy with politicians it’s covering. But what is the impact on comedy?A high-ceilinged hotel ballroom filled with television anchors and network executives is a tough room for stand-up, but no more so than an awards show. Trevor Noah was funnier two years ago at the dinner than he was at this year’s Grammys.A murderer’s row of comics, among them Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Wanda Sykes, has taken this assignment because it’s one of the most high-profile live comedy sets of the year. And there has been one truly great performance (Stephen Colbert), some very good ones (Seth Meyers, Larry Wilmore) and one so thrillingly biting (Michelle Wolf) that the next year they replaced the comic with a historian.Colin Jost’s set this year does not belong in that pantheon. Without his Weekend Update partner Michael Che next to him, he came off muted, vanilla, less assured than usual. With long pauses between jokes, eyes darting side to side, he occasionally took a drink of water and at least once acknowledged the lack of laughter in the room. His jokes leaned on wordplay more than a specific or novel perspective. “Some incredible news organizations here,” began one of his pricklier jokes, finished by: “Also, some credible ones.”He focused much fire on former President Donald J. Trump. “Now that O.J.’s dead, who is the front-runner for V.P.?” he asked. “Diddy?” Like Biden, Jost has always benefited from low expectations. No one that handsome could be funny, right? But he has grown into his role at “Saturday Night Live,” proving to be an especially strong straight man adept at the comedy of embarrassment. You could see his timing in one of the odder moments when he said Robert Kennedy Jr. could be the third Catholic president and the C-SPAN camera cut to President Biden (the second) clapping. Jost retreated on Kennedy’s chances one beat later: “Like his vaccine card says, he doesn’t have a shot.”For the third year in a row, President’s Biden’s age played a big role in the comedy (“Technology wasn’t invented when he was in high school,” Jost said of Biden), even in the president’s own set. Two years ago, Biden joked that he was friends with Calvin Coolidge. Last year, he referred to his “pal Jimmy Madison.” The president took a slightly different and more confrontational approach this time. “Age is an issue,” he said early. “I’m a grown man running against a 6-year-old.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    NBC’s Hiring of Ronna McDaniel, Former RNC Head: What’s the Deal?

    The deal with a former R.N.C. chair who enabled election deniers risked the credibility of NBC News — and ended up pleasing no one.For the past week the best drama on NBC — apologies to Dick Wolf — has been in the news department.On Friday, NBC News announced that it was hiring Ronna McDaniel, the former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as a political analyst. By Sunday morning, Kristen Welker was grilling Ms. McDaniel on “Meet the Press,” after which the former host Chuck Todd told his successor on-air that their bosses “owe you an apology.” By Monday morning, the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” condemned the hire. By Monday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow likened it to hiring “a mobster to work at a D.A.’s office.”And by Tuesday, Ms. McDaniel was officially out as an NBC News contributor, having lasted not even a half-Scaramucci.Not long ago, a TV news outlet hiring a former political bigwig might have occasioned grumbling from members of the other party, critiques from journalism watchdogs or anonymous griping among the staff. But it happened, and life went on. This kind of full-on, on-air revolt was something else — because Ms. McDaniel’s hiring was something else.The fiasco at NBC was in part a sign of how media outlets are struggling to cover politics in unusual times. But it was also a battle over how willing they should be to normalize ideas and actions that, in the post–Jan. 6 era, go well beyond politics as usual.The staff rebellion over Ms. McDaniel, after all, was not about her views on entitlement reform or health-care policy. It was about her statements and actions around the attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Throughout November and December of 2020, she supported former President Trump’s efforts to throw out the election results to stay in office, and at one point in the effort called Michigan election officials to ask them to delay certifying the state’s results.And although she didn’t back Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched election-theft scenarios, she continued to say, as in a 2023 interview with Chris Wallace, that she didn’t think President Biden “won it fair.” (Doing damage control in her interview with Ms. Welker, she called Mr. Biden “the legitimate president.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Stormy’ Review: Stormy Daniels Traces How Trump Case Upended Her Life

    A new documentary on Stormy Daniels traces how fame, frenzy and legal battles involving a former president upended her life.The arrival of “Stormy,” a new documentary on Peacock, is timely. In several weeks, former President Donald J. Trump is scheduled to go on trial in a case in which he’s accused of covering up a 2016 payment to the pornographic film star known as Stormy Daniels. (The trial was originally supposed start in late March, but has now been delayed until at least mid-April.)The documentary uses interviews and observational footage to recount the legal saga from Daniels’s perspective. It begins with the requisite accounts of her upbringing, her introduction to the sex industry and the 2006 tryst she says she had with Trump. “Stormy” then pivots to the period after the story of Daniels’s allegation of a sexual encounter with Trump was made public, tracing how the sudden fame and frenzy upended her personal life.After so much media coverage, certain details of the events feel overly familiar. But the director, Sarah Gibson, is often able to put the episodes into fresh contexts. Take the rise and fall of Michael Avenatti, Daniels’s onetime lawyer, who in 2022 was convicted of stealing from her: Rather than merely rehashing Avenatti’s offenses, Gibson positions him amid a wave of supposed male allies.These men go on to betray Daniels in ways that range from vexing to existential. And in a startling twist, some of the film’s footage comes from another documentary — never released — whose director became briefly involved with Daniels while shooting.“I’m not that special. I feel like a hypocrite,” Daniels says in one scene, considering her newfound status as a liberal luminary while preparing for a strip club performance. The sentiment gestures at complex questions about misogyny, female power and sexual agency. “Stormy” wisely lets these issues linger rather than tying a bow over them.StormyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Jabs Back at Trump After His Oscars Post on Truth Social

    Former President Donald J. Trump couldn’t help himself. And Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t resist either. So the Oscars wound to a close on a political note.Kimmel used some of his final stage time as host to read, to millions of Americans watching at home, a post published on Truth Social by Trump. (And yes, he really did post it.)Drawing out his phone onstage, Kimmel decided to share what he called “a review.”“Has there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars,” Kimmel said, reading part of Trump’s post, which included a disparaging nickname for the ABC host George Stephanopoulos.“His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be,” Kimmel continued. “Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous.”“Blah, blah, blah,” Kimmel said. “Make America great again.”After asking the audience, “See if you can guess which former president just posted that?” Kimmel offered one final jab, expressing surprise that Trump had stayed up to watch the telecast.“Isn’t it past your jail time?” he said. More

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    Biden Tries to Turn the Tables on Trump: ‘He’s About as Old as I Am’

    In his first election-year appearance on a late-night television show, the president joshed with Seth Meyers and poked at former President Donald J. Trump’s own memory lapses.President Biden has come up with a new defense against claims that he is too old to run for another term: At least he knows who his wife is — as opposed to “the other guy.”As he expands his efforts to reassure voters that he is fit for another four years, Mr. Biden took a turn on the talk show circuit, using an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC to poke his challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, on his own struggles with memory.In a playful but pointed interview aired early Tuesday morning, Mr. Meyers sought to help the president address the age issue, which polls show is an important drawback in the minds of most voters. Mr. Meyers jokingly told the president that he had obtained classified information indicating that “you are currently 81 years old.”Mr. Biden went along with the joke. “Who the hell told you that?” he asked. “That’s classified!”He then went on to jab Mr. Trump, who is 77, over a video in which he seems to call his wife, Melania Trump, by another name. “You got to take a look at the other guy,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name.”Turning more serious, Mr. Biden added that the contest is not about how old the candidates are. “It’s about how old your ideas are,” he said. “Look, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are — 50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.”The president has been on the defensive about his memory in recent weeks, particularly since a special counsel, in a report on Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents, explained that one reason he would not charge Mr. Biden is because he would come across to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” During his interview with the special counsel, the report said, Mr. Biden could not remember key dates of his vice presidency or the year his son Beau died. Mr. Biden’s defenders assailed the special counsel for mentioning that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    For Donald Trump, the Recriminations Will Be Televised

    The former president’s trials aren’t being aired. That isn’t stopping him from turning them into a political reality show.The civil-fraud case against Donald J. Trump’s businesses in New York, in which he was ordered to pay a penalty of $355 million, was not televised. Neither was his civil trial for the defamation of E. Jean Carroll. Nor — barring an unlikely change in federal court policy — will be his looming federal election-interference trial.But outside the courtroom, the show goes on.In each case, Mr. Trump has sought out the cameras, or brought in his own, to offer a stream-of-consciousness heave of legal complaints and re-election arguments. In the process, the former reality-TV host and current presidential candidate has turned his many legal cases into one-sided TV productions and campaign ads.To TV producers, because Mr. Trump is a former president, a candidate and high-profile defendant, his on-camera tirades are news. But there is also a kind of transaction at work. TV news craves conflict and active visuals. There are only so many times you can show a motorcade, or reporters cooling their heels in the street. Mr. Trump’s appearances give them sound, fury and B-roll.At the same time, Mr. Trump gets the kind of unfiltered access to the airwaves that networks were, once upon a brief time, wary of giving a candidate notorious for fabrications and conspiracy theories.On the day a judge set a trial date for his Manhattan criminal case stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star, cable news networks took him live as he called the case a Biden-campaign plot to steal the election: “This is their way of cheating this time. Last time, they had a different way.”On Friday evening, after the civil-fraud ruling, he spoke to the cameras at his home and private club Mar-a-Lago, claiming that the case (brought by the New York attorney general) “all comes out of Biden,” accusing the judge of corruption, citing his election poll numbers and lamenting that “the migrants come in and they take over New York.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Supreme Court Ballot Case Made for Must-Hear TV

    The live arguments gave audiences a rare chance to experience a Trump court case as it happened.If you were to list the ingredients of riveting live television, you would probably not include still photos, empty TV studios and parsing the nuances between the nouns “office” and “officer.”Thursday’s Supreme Court arguments over Colorado’s attempt to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot on the grounds of insurrection had all of those. But the proceedings, carried via live audio on cable news, also had two essentials of must-watch (or -hear) TV: High stakes and novelty.The stakes were clear, whether or not you could follow the dissection of the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. There are few things as important in a democracy as the decision of who gets to run in the next presidential election, not to mention the responsibility, and the consequences, for attempting to overturn the previous one.The broadcast was novel in more than one way. The Supreme Court only began livestreaming oral arguments in 2020, during the pandemic. Having such consequential arguments take over cable news for a full morning is a rarity.What’s more, much of the coming election will turn on court cases involving Mr. Trump, and American TV audiences are likely to be kept outside the door. Cameras were mostly barred from his civil trials in defamation and fraud cases; current federal rules prohibit them in his coming Georgia election-interference case. (The Georgia case is supposed to be livestreamed, but it may not take place before November, and Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that he should not be tried at all if he wins the election.)Thursday, in other words, was a rare chance for voters to experience a part of the Trump Legal Cinematic Universe for themselves, not through the analysis of pundits or the fulminations of the defendant. That alone made it a TV event.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Timeline of Toby Keith’s Biggest Songs and Career Moments

    The singer-songwriter was known for anthems, and political stances, that alternated between confrontation and big-tent populism.Toby Keith first drew recognition beyond country music as the artist behind the divisive post-9/11 rallying cry “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” But the singer-songwriter, who died Monday at the age of 62 after a battle with stomach cancer, appeared to view himself as a unifying force. “As far extreme as I seem,” he said in 2003, “I’m probably catching the average Joe in the middle better than anybody.”Keith topped the country chart 20 times with a catalog of sturdily built anthems including those that romanticized the cowboy’s life and traded on the big-tent appeal of a favorite bar and the charms of drinking beer out of a “Red Solo Cup.” His robust voice was just as adept at conveying rueful heartache as it was at carrying riled-up swagger, and his surprisingly shaded political stances showed a similar range and savvy. Here’s a look back at some of his biggest hits and most prominent moments during a three-decade career.1993‘Should’ve Been a Cowboy’Keith topped the U.S. country chart with his debut single, in which he longed for a life spent “wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive,” and tipped his Stetson hat to legendary screen cowboys like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon of “Gunsmoke.” But the song was hardly the first rodeo for Keith, who had spent years playing the honky-tonk circuit in and around his native Oklahoma after high school. The 6-foot-4 musician also worked at an oil field — an experience that, he later reflected, “made a man out of me” — and played semipro football. He would come to view his winding path to success as a blessing.“If I’d come out of the box with my first No. 1 hit at 21, instead of when I was 29, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it because I wasn’t mature enough then,” he said in 2012. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More